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But staying in the open until people came to the Outs wasn’t likely a great idea. There was a bus that brought tourists or citizens out into nature early morning. I could stay awake, stand guard, and wait for dawn to arrive. Or I couldflowwith Eli back to my grandmother’s house. None of the options were ideal. What I wanted was to go home.
I nodded toward the ghost zone. “Are you staying there? Outside the city?”
“Yeah, man. The way you killed—”
“I did not murder them.” I pointed at them with my tip of my sword, and the furred predators started to stalk toward the trio of American-by-way-of-Europedraugr. Animals were not as graceful as humans, but I thought that was because they were so graceful in life that the slight delay as they remembered how to stalk was noticeable. My dead mammal army slowly advanced.
“Ms. Crowe?” Eli asked. “Are you feeding these again-walkers to the beasts?”
His formal tone cut through my anger. Apparently, I’d had a smidge too much of Beatrice’s blood. I felt colder than usual.
“Halt,” I think-spoke to the furred ones.
The puma looked at me in irritation and yowled, as if to tell me to stop teasing. I suppose it could’ve said other things, but I did not speak puma—even dead puma.
I looked back at thedraugr. “The queen is not Baba Yaga . . . I think.”
“Chaz said she was actually Marie Antionette,” the woman offered.
“Sure, but Eve said that Baba Yaga was a tsarina,” Tommy said. Then, catching himself before falling into what apparently an old argument, he stared at me. “Whoever she is, she’snotmyqueen. I’m a vampire!”
My head was starting to hurt from not rolling my eyes.
“Okay. I did not kill your friends. Beatrice did not kill them.” I motioned toward the car. “You, however, wrecked our car, and I have places I’d rather be.”
“If you can help us, we’ll get the car going.” Tommy smirked. “I bet you can’t do that.”
I growled, and the animals all growled in an eerie symphony. Sometimes the connection with furred things made me a little pre-verbal, but tonight, I’d go with it.
“Scottie?” the woman said in a squeakier voice.
Scott went over and peeled off the remains of the car’s hood and tossed it aside. Eli winced, staring at his car hood when it was discarded on the ground like debris. Scott poked around in the engine. I had no idea what he was doing, but he was clearly more adept at engine’s than words.
“I’m sorry about your car,” I said to Eli. I honestly had no idea what a car like his would cost.
“There are worse things that could happen,” Eli gave one of his half-shrugs as we watched adraugrmutter and tinker with a custom car.
“We needed a way to earn money,” Tommy said, noticing our stare. “Scottie can work at night off the books. He was a helluva mechanic when he was alive.
“Worked racetrack pit crews,” Scottie said from under the hood. “Even faster now.”
“We only drink the willing,” the woman said. “So, we earn our money. I dance.”
Draugr strippers were a thing in a few cities who were “embracing the future.” I guess there’s a club for every kink somewhere.
I was starting to feel twitchy. Unlike the fae, I’m not great at patience. “We could go to Beatrice’s.”
Eli nodded.
Then thedraugrstraightened and pronounced, “It’ll run.”
One disaster averted. The thought offlowingto Beatrice’s estate and staying there didn’t make me comfortable—and it would surely spell the second-death of thedraugrin front of me. Beatrice was temperamental at the best of times.
“Stay in the Outs,” I ordered bothdraugrand animal. I told the trio of dead people, “I’ll find out who killed them.”
Then I looked at the animals and pictured Beatrice’s castle. With the image securely held in my mind, I ordered, “Lead them here.”
With a mental apology to my grandmother for the surprise I was sending to her, I added, “The queen will look after you while I find out who did it. Tell her that the blue-haired witch sent you for parley.”
